Washington Crop Circle Surprising, But Typical

When a four-part crop circle pattern roughly resembling a Mickey Mouse head appeared last week in a wheat field outside of Seattle, Wash., farmers Greg and Cindy Geib were surprised — but not shocked.

After all, it was not the first crop circle in the area; several others had appeared in previous years, mostly chalked up to mischievous youth. The pattern was noticed by a neighbor driving on a nearby highway who soon called the Geibs on July 24 and told them they’d been punk’d. The mysterious circle had apparently been made overnight, with no obvious signs of hoaxing.

People are always surprised by crop circles (especially when it happens to them), but in fact they’re not as rare as often assumed: According to an article by Richard Taylor published in “Physics World” (August 2011), “these patterns appear around the world at a rate of one every evening,” making them literally an everyday event.

Many hundreds of crop circles have appeared over the years, usually in hotspots like Great Britain, and according to Taylor their designs are getting ever more complex as a result of the technology available to crop-circle artists.

Theories & explanations

Crop-circle enthusiasts have come up with many theories about what creates the patterns, ranging from the plausible to the patently absurd. One explanation in vogue in the early 1980s was that the circles were …